Greg Marshall has penned a different kind of coming-out memoir: With Leg (10 hours), he writes about his evolving understanding of his identity not only as a gay man but also as a disabled person. Out of a well-intentioned desire to prevent their son from focusing on his differences, his parents kept his cerebral palsy diagnosis a secret and led Marshall to believe that he just had “tight tendons” until his early thirties. Marshall’s memoir-in-essays (some of which have been published elsewhere in standalone form) transforms what could have been a fairly tragic tale—growing up as a disabled kid with two chronically ill parents—into wry comedy, thanks in no small part to a colorful family life, a fair amount of raunchy humor and a willingness to make fun of himself. Marshall, who reads his own work, forewarns listeners that they may “notice occasional mouth sounds that accompany this reading” due to his disability, but even this author’s note is couched in wit and humor.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
